“The cultivation of sensations implies an egoism which revolts me… One lives among phantoms, dreaming instead of living.”
— Simone Weil
“The life of sensation is the life of greed.”
— Annie Dillard
Sthira sukham asanam
— Patanjali Yoga Sutras II.46
(Posture should be steady and comfortable.)
The matter of sensation has, for me at least, been one of life’s big questions.
Gifted (or cursed?) with a high level of sensitivity, I’ve always been deeply responsive to physical, emotional, and energetic shifts. As a child, I delighted in the hum of the PlayStation controller’s rumble pack at a horrifyingly young age. I cried with full-body sincerity when a cartoon character was harmed. I could sit in stillness for hours beside my grandmother—so powerful was the peace she radiated.
Later, I would find myself undone by the sound of Tibetan singing bowls. I’ve felt butterflies in my belly so strong they threatened to lift me off the floor. I’ve collapsed—shaking and weeping—from the sheer force of a lover’s emotional intensity.
It’s a lot of sensation to manage. And it can be enslaving.
At some point, I began to realize that a life governed by the pursuit of sensation—no matter how spiritual, aesthetic, or elevated those sensations may seem—can quietly reduce reality to the boundaries of one’s own sensory experience. It turns every relationship, every act of love or kindness, into a means of producing or avoiding a feeling. This is what Simone Weil so starkly names: phantoms. We stop encountering the world as it is, and instead relate to it only as a mirror for how we feel.
And this isn’t just a philosophical problem. It shows up everywhere—including on the mat.
Sensation in asana
Patanjali’s deceptively simple instruction—sthira sukham asanam—invites a steady, comfortable seat. But what does that mean when our bodies and minds are addicted to novelty, drama, or even the sharp edge of discomfort?
In my own asana practice, I’ve spent years chasing sensation: going deeper, reaching further, angling myself into more and more dramatic expressions of a pose. I’ve felt that edge of pain and confused it for progress. I’ve also seen how this chase can create unhealthy patterns in the joints or nervous system (note: can, not will—we are all wired differently).
On the flip side, I’ve also seen the cost of avoiding sensation. We fall back into old, familiar patterns that may be comforting but stagnant. When we avoid any discomfort, we miss the subtle invitations the body offers us: to breathe into tightness, to change our habitual way of moving, to grow.
As Sharath Jois often says, “You get a new asana, you get a new pain.” That line used to make me laugh. Now I hear it as a reminder: discomfort isn’t the enemy—but it also isn’t the goal.
Between craving and avoidance
So, how do we relate to sensation without being ruled by it?
On the mat, that might mean being honest about why we’re leaning further into a pose. Is it to deepen our practice—or to feel something? Are we numbing out when the sensation becomes too subtle to notice? Or are we using discomfort as a kind of badge, proof that we’re doing it “right”?
Off the mat, it might mean practicing intimacy not for how it makes us feel, but for how it allows us to be with another. It might mean choosing stillness even when stimulation is easy to come by. It might mean walking away from the fantasy of endless good feelings and learning to sit with what is.
Final thoughts
As someone who has lived a very feeling-filled life, I’m not here to advocate for numbness or stoicism. I believe in the wisdom of the body. I trust sensation as one of many forms of inner guidance. But I also know how easy it is for sensation to become a stand-in for intuition, truth, or love—and how often it isn’t.
So maybe the invitation isn’t to reject sensation, but to stop worshipping it.
To steady the posture, make it comfortable—not indulgent, not armoured, but just right. To come back, again and again, to what is real—not just what feels good.
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